Waiting for an owl

There is a red maple tree next to my house. After it was damaged in the tornado that came near the house in 1998, a family of flickers carved out cavity in the tree to build their nest. Their babies came and went, as babies do. The cavity has gone unused since. But almost every day, I go to the window and look, hoping that one day I’ll see some owls making a home there.

If and when that happens, it may look a lot like this. This is a screech owl, sleeping in a tree in Atlanta’s Piedmont Park. My friend Karen McGinnis, an excellent photographer with an impressive portfolio of many owl species, had found this guy and posted a picture of him (or her). When I asked where it was, she most kindly told me exactly where I could find him (or her).

It was Christmas Day, 2016. In keeping with our tradition, my wife and I had gone to the movies. “Hidden Figures” opened that day, playing in only one theater in Atlanta. We went to the noon matinee—the first screening of the movie in the city, and loved the film. Afterwards, we drove over to Piedmont Park and went to the spot Karen had described. It was about 3:00 p.m., a time when all good owls should be fast asleep (we’ll make an exception for burrowing owls, which work a day shift). And there he or she was.

Ornithologists will tell you that this is the red morph of the screech owl. They also come in gray. Whatever color, I really hope I look out my window one day and see one sleeping in that nice cavity in my red maple tree.

As I was saying...

I wrote yesterday—and had written once before that—about the amazing number of different birds species living in the relatively tiny area that is Costa Rica. And whenever you visit another country with a different climate and geography than your own, you’re bound to see birds that make you wonder, “What is THAT?”

Exhibit A: the red-legged honeycreeper. I can see how it got the first part of its name. But honeycreeper? They feed on fruit, insects, and even nectar in a variety of forest habitats. The honeycreeper's thin, downward-curving bill is an adaptation to nectar-eating, but also allows the it to get at fruit and insects.  Honeycreepers are able to reach into the narrow cracks of ripening fruit husks to nip bits off the rich parts inside, long before birds with shorter, heavier bills can reach them.  In the same way, the bill fits neatly into cracks in tree bark and behind twisting vines to pluck out insects too small and hidden for other birds to find.  And as these tiny insects make up the majority of the red-legged honeycreeper's diet, maybe it should be named the red-legged bug muncher. Or maybe not.

This bird is very common in Central and northern South America from Mexico south to Brazil.  I saw this one on our first stop in Costa Rica, near the Arenal volcano. We were having breakfast one morning on the restaurant’s patio , when one of the staff came outside with a bucket of cut-up fruit. He stuck pieces on this multi-pronged piece of wood, resembling a tree branch. Within minutes, all sorts of colorful birds descended for their own breakfast al fresco.

Seeing this bird sent us scrambling for our cameras, and then for the field guide. If you visit Central America or another continent, you’ve GOT to have a field guide if you want to know what you’re seeing. I hope you get to visit Costa Rica. And I hope you see the red-legged honeycreeper.

What is THAT?

The American Birding Association lists more than 900 bird species as living or visiting the US and Canada. And I confess, I don’t know them all. When I saw this guy last spring, I had to ask, “What is THAT?”

The answer is a black-throated blue warbler. It’s one of the roughly 40 warbler species that live in the US and Canada. The Black-throated blue spends the spring and summer in Eastern hardwood forests from Georgia north to Canada, then quite sensibly winters in the Caribbean.

I saw this bird in the Magree Marsh, about 50 miles east of Toledo. It’s a major stopover for songbirds migrating north during the spring. Thousands of birders come there in May to see and photograph birds that are otherwise very difficult or impossible to find. If I go back, maybe I’ll be lucky enough to see this bird’s cousins, the black-throated green and black-throated gray warblers.

If you think the more than 900 different bird species of the US and Canada is impressive, consider this: Costa Rica, which is roughly the same size as West Virginia, had 850 different bird species!

An Underground Sensation

Birds live in and among the trees, or in the water, right? Not this one. You’re face-to-face with a burrowing owl. They will dig their own burrows or take over one abandoned by a prairie dog, ground squirrel or tortoise. They also hunt on the ground during the day, which explains why this one was staring straight at me when we met one afternoon a few years ago.

We were in Naples visiting our friends Debbie and Eugene, and heard from another birder we met on a walk about a nest of burrowing owls on nearby Marco Island. We went to the spot he described—a vacant lot in residential area—and there he or she was.

You can find burrowing owls all over the Florida peninsula, and throughout the Western U.S.. They’re habitats are declining rapidly because we keep building on the lands they use. But they’re pretty clever and adaptable: they’ve been known to nest in piles of PVC pipe and other lairs unintentionally provided by humans. Conservationists make use of the owls' adaptability by supplying artificial burrows made of buckets, pipes, tubing, and other human-made materials.

Here’s looking at you, kid.

Happy New Year!

I’m a bit late with this, owing to our trip to Florida for my one and only niece’s wedding. Given what’s going on in our political world right now, I thought a post about this picture of two Steller’s Jays would be appropriate.

Steller’s Jay is a cousin to the more common blue jay, and has the same bold, inquisitive and noisy characteristics. You’ll find them from the Rocky Mountains to the West Coast, usually at elevations of 3,000 - 10,000 feet. They’re named in honor of Georg Steller, the German naturalist who first recorded one while on an expedition in Alaska in 1741.

The snowy background of this photo suggests I took this in the winter, but that’s not the case. It was October, 2013, and we were in Boulder visiting our son David. Our trip coincided with the two-and-a-half week long government shutdown, which closed Rocky Mountain National Park. But the state of Colorado stepped in while we were out there and funded staffing so the park could open. We drove to Estes Park and enjoyed a wonderful day in the park. If you ever have a chance to go there, don’t miss it.

At some of the higher points in the park, and especially in the shaded area, some recent snow had not yet melted. That’s where I found this pair of Steller’s Jays. I used this picture in my calendar a few years ago.

What's in a name?

I hope you enjoyed the holiday yesterday. We celebrated in our traditional fashion: a movie followed by dinner with friends at a Chinese restaurant. Now back to the birds.

This is a Cape May warbler, which I photographed in the Magee Marsh near Toledo, OH last May, where it and a few thousand other birds stop over each Spring on their way north for the summer. During the summer, it eats insects. But during its migration and during the winter, it uses its unique, curled and semi-tubular tongue to collect nectar. I used this shot for the month of January on my 2019 calendar.

If you think the bird got its name from Cape May, New Jersey, you’re right. The famed early American ornithologist Alexander Wilson first spotted this warbler in Cape May sometime in the early 19th century. No one saw another Cape May warbler in Cape May, NJ for the next 100 years. This could be why it’s not the state bird (that would be the goldfinch).

The bird world is full of stories about birds getting their names in a much less than scientific way. The magnolia warbler was also named by Alexander Wilson when he was first to see one. It happened to be in a Mississippi magnolia tree at the time, while on its migration. But that was a fluke; it primarily sticks to coniferous trees when it summers in Canada and the northern U.S.

Some other birds got their names because someone thought that’s what their song or call sounded like. Chickadee and towhee are two examples that come quickly to mind.

Of course, when you think about how some people get their names, maybe this isn’t so odd, after all.

Family time

No matter how or even if you worship, holidays are a time to be with those we love. So on this Christmas Eve, I”m posting the bird picture from my collection that best says “family,” and it’s one of my favorites.

Tomorrow will be the first Christmas for this little guy, or little gal. He or she was born soon after Christmas last year. Unlike our backyard birds who lay their eggs in the spring, osprey and eagle babies begin hatching in January and February.

Osprey nests are about the size of a toddler’s wading pool. They build them high up in trees, or on platforms thoughtfully placed by their human friends. This one is on a platform about 20 feet off the ground near the beach in Naples, FL. It’s not far from a raised boardwalk, all of which afforded me this nice angle at which to shoot.

I just happened to be there with my camera when the osprey chick popped up to peek over the edge. So much of getting nice bird pictures is simply fortuitous timing.

If you ordered one of my 2019 calendars (thank you very much!), you’ll see this picture again throughout the month of February.

Whatever Christmas means to you, I wish you and your families all the joys of the holidays, and a happy and healthy new year

Winter wonderland

As the Google Doodle reminds us, winter begins today. The solstice marking the start of the new season, and the day with the least amount of sunlight in the Northern Hemisphere comes at 5:23 p.m. ET. In honor of the start of my least favorite time of the year, here’s a picture taken in my backyard a few years ago during one of our mercifully infrequent snowfalls.

Male cardinals are especially beautiful and a welcome sight in my winter backyard. Their bright red plumage stands out in gorgeous contrast to the brown and gray, leafless branches of my trees and shrubs.

There are several dozen bird species, including the cardinal, which are year-round residents here in the Atlanta area. They protect themselves against the cold by puffing themselves up, using the air pockets as insulation. And even those birds not lucky enough to enjoy the fabulous buffet that is my array of feeders have little trouble finding food here in the winter months.

That’s why birds fly south for the winter. They’re trying to make sure they don’t starve. They’re not trying to escape the cold. That’s why I like to go south in the winter. Like soccer, beets and Hallmark holiday movies, it’s just not for me. For those of you who love the change of seasons and revel in the prospect of snowy fun, I send my warmest wishes for this cold quarter.